Teach Spanish Easily Pre-listening Activities

Listening Activities

Listening Strategies:
   Unfamiliar Words
   Give a Focus
   Context Clues
   TQLR

Pre-Listening Activities

During Listening Activities:
   Card Activities
   Categorize Words
   Charts
   Cloze Activities
   Commands
   Commercials
   Dictations
   Illustrations
   Interviews
   Listening Games
   Movies
   Native Speakers
   Newscasts
   Pictures
   Puzzles
   Questions
   Radio
   Songs
   Sounds
   Statements
   Stories
   Textbooks
   TV shows
   Video Clips

Post Listening Activities

Listening Assessment

Pre-listening Activities

DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE

Give specific tips and hints to teach students how to listen.

My goal as a foreign language teacher is to teach active and accurate listening. As a result, before diving into a listening activity, I always include pre-listening activities. I believe pre-listening activities are essential for helping students focus on the task and to ensure comprehension because they:

Provide focus.
Familiarize students with the text type.
Familiarize students with the vocabulary.
Give background information and situational context.
Link prior knowledge to the content.

Different types of pre-listening activities

Establish a Purpose for Listening

Provide students with a purpose for listening. They should know if they are listening for:

Advice
Entertainment
Explanations
Facts
Information
Instructions
Learning
Main ideas
Opinions
Persuasion

Familiarize students with text type

Because students may not be familiar with each text type, one easy way to ensure comprehension is to discuss the text type and its characteristics. Include different text types such as:

Advertisements
Announcements
Directions
Introductions
Lectures
News reports
Plays
Poetry
Speeches

Students will understand better if they know whether the text is:

Serious
Funny
Personal
Informal
Formal
Persuasive
Descriptive

Students Make Predictions

To add a little pizzazz, I take out crystal ball and let students look into it and “predict” what the listening text is about. Students can write out their predictions or tell them to me orally. Other activities are:

Show the title and have students guess the topic of the passage.
Show pictures or charts and ask students about the topic of the listening passage.
Give students a list of words from the passage and have them predict what the passage.
Students preview questions to help anticipate information.
Students brainstorm vocabulary words that they might hear based on background information given.
Students ask you questions about the subject matter of the listening passage.
Students write three questions that they think will be answered in the listening passage and predict the answers to their questions. After the listening activity, students compare and contrast answers.

Provide Background Information on Topic

Providing background information helps students feel more at ease with listening than if they simply went into it “cold” and they will be more prepared since the use of background information aids in listening comprehension. In my experience, the more background knowledge I provide students, the more they are able to understand. Here are some ideas:

Assess students’ background knowledge on the topic by brainstorming to see what Spanish verbs or words they can relate to the subject.
Build on prior knowledge of the subject. Students think about what they already know such as:

Grammar
Reason for passage
Subject matter
Text type
Tone of voice
Vocabulary and expressions used

Fill in a K-W-L chart on the topic. (Link)

K - Students share what they know about the topic.
W - What they think they will learn in the selection.
L - What they learned in the selection and how it fits in what they thought they were going to learn.

After the listening activity, discuss whether their guesses about the reading were true.

Have an oral discussion to introduce the topic.
Learn about the speaker.
Look at photos, pictures, props, and other realia.
Provide a transcript for students to read.
Read an article on the topic.
Respond to pre-assigned questions based on background knowledge given.
Set up a web quest.
Share personal experiences.
Watch video clip.

Pre-teach Vocabulary

Pre-teach vocabulary that is essential for understanding the text and hold students accountable for learning it. This will prevent students from becoming frustrated and tuning out. They will also learn a lot because they will hear the vocabulary used in authentic contexts.

Ask personalized questions using vocabulary from the text.
Classify vocabulary into themes or parts of speech.
Create written or oral sentences with vocabulary with a partner.
Guess meaning of the word from the root, stem, ending, or context of story.
Match vocabulary with English meaning or with a picture.
Play games to teach or reinforce vocabulary such as charades or pictionary.
Provide students with a list of key words from the text. Then have the class create a story with those words.
Teach vocabulary in context rather than just giving the dictionary definition.
Teach vocabulary using actions or gestures. If you don’t know a gesture then ask students. They come up with some really meaningful and creative gestures.
Provide students with mnemonic device to remember words. For example, I tell students that one way to remember the word pelo (hair) is that you put your pelo on a pillow when you sleep. Pelo sounds similar to pillow. For quería tener (wanted to have), I tell the class it sounds like Katie wanted to have a tan. It may sound strange but mnemonic devices work for some students and therefore it is an effective way to remember the words. I also ask students for ideas. They come up with great ways to remember words and it is much more meaningful when it comes from them.